Tennessee Republicans reverse on child marriage ban bill, will bring it back for debate

Donna Pollard describes getting married at 16 to a 29-year-old man who was her counselor. She is behind Senate Bill 48 to raise the legal age of marriage in Kentucky to 18 years old.
Matt Stone, Courier Journal

House Republicans will reverse their decision and bring back a bill that would ban child marriages in Tennessee, House Majority Leader Glen Casada said Thursday.

Republicans had effectively killed the bill, sponsored by Rep. Darren Jernigan, D-Old Hickory, on Wednesday by sending it to summer study session, where bills are usually reviewed but do not often come back for a vote.

Casada, R-Franklin, who sits on the House Civil Justice Subcommittee, made the motion citing an email he received from former state Sen. David Fowler, president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee.

Fowler argued that passing Jernigan's bill could interfere with a lawsuit he is mounting to counter the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision to legalize gay marriage in the 2015 case of Obergefell v. Hodges.

Jernigan called the treatment of his bill "brutal," as subcommittee Chair Rep. Mike Carter, R-Ooltewah, declined to allow Jernigan to call witnesses up to speak who had traveled to Tennessee from New Jersey.

But by Thursday afternoon, after media reports outlining a loophole in Tennessee law that gives judges discretion to grant marriage licenses with no minimum age limit, Casada said he conferred with Carter, a former general sessions judge, and was "shocked."

"I have sat down with Carter, and I was more than shocked when I found out that there are judges in the state of Tennessee that allow for children to be married," Casada said. "So, with that fact given, we are going to revisit these limits on what a judge in Tennessee can do on marrying children in our state."

Casada said the measure will be brought back for reconsideration at the next meeting of the subcommittee at 3 p.m. Tuesday in House Hearing Room III. He said members will make a motion to reconsider, and the next week it will be brought back before the committee.

"Judges can rule that a 12-year-old can marry someone who is over 18. I just didn't think that would exist," Casada said. "That's when the legislature has to act."